(We sell second-hand furniture for charity. I sold a solid oak bed for £100 to a customer who had already kicked up a fuss in regard to the price, until I offered a price match where if he could find the same or similar cheaper I’d match the price. Not surprisingly, he didn’t, but he bought the bed anyway. This is a followup a week later.)

Customer: “I want my money back for this bed.” *shows me the paperwork*

Me: “Okay, what is the issue?”

Customer: “The bed broke when my daughter sat on it.”

(He shows me a picture of a girl around fourteen, who weighs no more than nine stone. Now, remember, it’s a solid oak bed and I, myself, sat on it and I was about sixteen stone at the time. The customer is about twenty-one stone and is obviously the one who broke the bed.) 

Me: “Okay, no problem. Did you want to exchange or get a refund?”

Customer: “I want my money back.”

Me: “Okay, no problem. I’ll send my van guys out to collect the bed and when it’s back in the store, just pop in with the receipt and I’ll give you your refund.”

Customer: “Okay, when will they get the bed?”

Me: “Let me have a look… I can do two days from now.”

Customer: “Okay.”

(It’s all booked in and he goes away. Two days later, the van guy calls me from the customer’s house.)

Van Guy: “Hey, [My Name], I’m at this guy’s house but they’ve thrown the bed away; there’s nothing here.”

Me: “Okay, just get him to sign to say you turned up and carry on with the other collections.”

(I am slightly annoyed, as it costs us £11 to send a collection out, which is completely free for the customer, so we’re essentially losing money when nothing comes back. The next day, the customer walks in.)

Customer: “I want my money.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot offer a refund as there is no item.”

Customer: “I want my money.”

Me: “Sir, as I explained to you the other day, I needed the item to be able to do the refund, and you threw the bed away. Therefore, I cannot return any money.”

Customer: *starting to shout and inch closer to me* “I. Want. My. Money.”

Me: “Sir, I understand, but I cannot give you money on an item that isn’t here.”

Customer: “I want to speak to a manager.”

Me: “I am the manager; however, I’m happy to call my area manager and see what he says.”

(The customer okays this, so I call the area manager. I briefly explain the situation and he bluntly says no, and even speaks to the customer and explains again why he can’t have a refund. All goes well, and they hang up after my boss tells me not to do the refund.)

Customer: “I want my money.”

Me: “Sir, as I have told you several times, and as my boss has just told you, you can’t have any money.”

Customer: “Your boss said I could.”

Me: “Sorry, he told me that he explained you couldn’t and he told me you couldn’t.”

(Very angry and going red, the guy gets about a centimetre away from my face and pokes me in the chest, with my big-a** warehouse guy standing there ready to come over.)

Customer: “I am Czech! My Czech friends and I will come here and do bad things to you! I want my money!”

Me: *trying to keep calm before I explode and punch him* “I’ve said, ‘No.’ Now, please step back and do not touch me again or I will phone the police and have you arrested.”

Customer: *still refusing to back off* “I want my money now or you will be sorry.”

(This is where I signalled to the big-a** warehouse guy and the slightly smaller big-a** warehouse guy who had joined the party. They stepped between us and edged the customer out of the shop, telling him he was banned and if he came into the shop again we would call the police due to his behaviour.)

(I’ve always been the kid who remembers weird facts that make people wonder if I’m sane, so as an adult I’ve learned to hide a fair bit of my personality around “normal” people. I currently work in a charity shop, and as the youngest regular worker and most IT-competent person, I end up doing a lot of basic tech support. Our office printer goes belly-up, but thankfully, we have a standard home-use one on a shelf that will do just as well. I have it hooked up and am looking up ink prices on the office computer as my supervisor and a coworker sort stock nearby.)

Supervisor: “Will it be expensive, do you know?”

Me: *distracted, typing in search bar* “Could be. Printer ink is more expensive than human blood.”

(And then I realised I’d said it out loud. Pretty sure I could feel both [Coworker] and [Supervisor]’s eyes widen even though they were both behind me. Thankfully, the printer was an older, fairly common model, so the ink was reasonably cheap!)

(I volunteer for a local charity who just took over a shop from another local charity who went bust six months ago. My wife is the manager. The name of the charity has the county in it.)

Customer: “Is [Employee] here?”

Me: “No, sorry, we’re a new shop now and there are only the three of us at the moment.”

Customer: “So, what charity is running it now?”

Me: “[Charity].”

Customer: “And what do they do?”

Me: “Support homeless people in the area.”

Customer: “Well, they’re not local, are they! They all come here!”

(She stormed out, I stood there dumbfounded and then managed to get out, “That was a bit harsh,” while my wife laughed.)

(I am a fairly anxious teenager, working the till at a charity shop as a volunteer. The charity in question is a very big, well-known one. A man enters the shop and comes straight towards the counter. He’s got a very stern expression, and I’m concerned he’s here to make a complaint while my manager has stepped out.)

Customer: *sharply* “What do you do?”

Me: “Uh, the charity or me personally?”

Customer: “The charity.”

(I’m a little taken aback by his abruptness, and not sure how best to explain the work we do, because it has quite a broad scope, but I do my best:)

Me: “Well, we work with impoverished communities overseas to provide aid, like building wells and schools and, um, also medical care and education. We cover quite a lot of areas, really, but the aim is, I suppose, to help those communities become able to help themselves…”

(I go on in this vein for a while; I’m aware that I’m rambling, but the guy keeps frowning at me expectantly, so I keep talking. Eventually, I run out of ways to explain what we do.)

Me: “Did you have any other questions, sir?”

(Without another word, he pulls out a chequebook and writes a £50 cheque!)

Customer: “What name do I make this out to? Just [Charity]?”

Me: “Yes, sir! Thank you so much!”

(I guess he just had an angry face; he very patiently filled out a form so we could claim back gift aid for his donation, and then he walked out of the shop without another word. Despite his abrupt behaviour, he ended up making my day!)

(I work at the till at a charity shop in England. It is the day of Harry and Meghan’s wedding, and as I’m ringing up this lady, the news talks about the wedding. The lady shakes her hands and sighs before looking up at me.)

Customer: *giving me a horrified look* “You know, it’s the first mixed marriage in the royal family!”

(My mind stops. Mixed? What does she mean? I’m caught so off-guard that my first thought is “mixed because it’s a man and a woman?” My next thought is “mixed because they’re from different countries?” and, I know it’s wrong, but nothing else seems to make any sense, so I go with that.)

Me: “Oh, well… I guess… Back in the day, it would have been… good for the countries’ alliance?”

Customer: *shaking her head again* “No! It’s awful!”

Me: *still dumbfounded* “That’s [price]. Would you like a bag?”

(The lady paid, grabbed her stuff, and stormed out, still grumbling. It took me a full ten minutes to realise exactly what she was talking about.)